‘You look very tired.’
‘I am a bit.’
‘You mustn’t get over-tired because the…’ He put his head down as he stopped speaking. When he lifted it, he added, ‘It’s a terrible time.’
‘How are they farin’ in the village?’
‘There have been two more deaths today. Katie McGill died.’
‘Oh no!’ She put her hand to her mouth. She had liked Katie McGill. Her father was a shepherd and they lived in a cottage no bigger than this one, and there were eight of them altogether. Poor Katie.
‘And Mr Collier you know.’
Her mouth opened and closed and she shook her head. ‘That’s six,’ she said.
‘Yes, six. And…and I’m afraid there may be more. But it is much worse in the towns, although they tell me they’ve got it under control in Gateshead. I wish we could say the same for the village and hereabouts. And I’m sure you will be sad to know that Sir Peter Rollinson died last night, not from cholera, it was old age.’
Her hand was pressed tightly across the lower part of her face now and she leant against the stanchion of the door and closed her eyes. That lovely old man, the only man of the class that had given her a kind word. The rest galloped past you and bespattered you with mud from their horses; or when coming out of church a look from them would push you aside to give them a straight way. But that old man had been so nice to her on the two occasions she had met him, and his daughter too.
‘Emma.’
The parson had taken a step nearer to her, and he was within two arms’ length of her when she brought her attention to him and saw that he was in some agitation. And when he spoke his voice was low and had a tremble to it: ‘I, like everyone else, am in God’s hands,’ he said; ‘I don’t know my hour. I am visiting the sick, so therefore my call may come any time, and, Emma, I would not like to go to my maker without first telling you that I…I hold you in high esteem, in the greatest esteem. I’ve had your concern since I first made your acquaintance on the coach, but over the years I have come to care for you deeply. Whatever God wills I would like you to remember this, Emma.’
She was aware that her eyes were wide and wet and that large slow tears were running down through the sweaty grime on her face, and her heart was aching with the pain that was new and strange and beautiful, the pain that she wanted to hug to her, to press it so hard into her body that it would increase until she was enveloped in it.
‘Don’t cry, Emma. Don’t cry.’
She opened her eyes and after a moment said, ‘Take care. Don’t…don’t—’ she was about to say die but changed it to, ‘don’t run risks.’
‘There are so many brave people running risks at the moment, Emma, my part is very small, and as I said, we’re in God’s hands, but what His purpose is I don’t know.’ He shook his head as he looked down at her and added, ‘I dare at times when in the depths to question His motives, but I’ve told myself perhaps He has sent this scourge to make those in authority aware of why these things happen, aware of the conditions that breed them.’
His head was moving slowly now as he finished, ‘I don’t know. I don’t know. Anyway Emma, I say to you, take care, great care and keep away from the house. And by the way, Mr Bowman wishes to be remembered to you.’
‘Is…is he all right?’ Her voice sounded like a croak.
‘Yes. I have called to him from the gate, and he seemed well enough yesterday. But he is very concerned for you and your grandmother…Goodbye, Emma.’
She brought herself up straight from the support of the stanchion and, her lips trembling, she muttered, ‘Goodbye, Parson,’ and in a gabble she added, ‘I too hold you in high esteem.’ Then turning about, she rushed into the cottage and closed the door, and, throwing herself down onto the mat in front of the dead fire, she laid her arms on the seat of the rocking chair and buried her head in them and gave way to a paroxysm of weeping, all the while muttering to herself that she would never marry Barney, never marry anyone. Never. Never. And if God would only keep the parson safe, she would do anything He asked of her.
Two
The morning was heavy with rain. It had rained incessantly for twenty-four hours. The yard and everywhere about was like a sea of mud, and, as her granny would have said, her spirits had dropped to her boots. She had now been eleven days on her own and she was filled with worry, not about being alone but about her granny. She had seen her last evening across the yard. Her face had looked drawn, her shoulders rounded and there was no life in her voice as she called, ‘Are you all right, lass?’
If her granny took the cholera, what would she do? She pushed the thought out of her mind and went on scraping the cow dung from the floor of the byre.
When she heard the door open she turned about and saw Barney standing there. He did not come towards her, nor did she move towards him, but when he said, ‘Ma’s gone, Emma,’ her whole body jerked and she let go of the rake and it dropped onto the slime of the floor.
In a normal way, she knew she should be terribly sorry, and she was feeling sorry, but not because she had any liking for the woman who had treated her worse than she did the animals, she was sorry that the excuse she had for not marrying Barney had been taken from her by death, for she had made up her mind to say to Barney, ‘I can’t come between you and your ma, I couldn’t live with it.’ It would have been a lie, but it would have been the gentlest way of telling him that she wasn’t for marrying. Now that excuse had gone.
‘I’m sorry to the heart, Emma. We didn’t get on all the time and she stood in my way, but she was a good mother, she brought us up well.’ He was speaking with his head lowered, but when he lifted it he spoke with a voice that sounded full of authority as he said, ‘There’ll be changes, Emma; the way’ll be clear now.’ Then he swung round and went out.
She turned slowly and looked into the face of a cow, and it opened its mouth and gave a small moo that sounded like a moan, and it could have come from her own lips at this very moment.
They buried Dilly Yorkless two days later. There was no long cortège to this funeral, no big spread in the farmhouse; in fact there was no meal at all for the men in the farmhouse for Lizzie had gone sick.
It wasn’t, she assured Emma from her bed in the cottage, the cholera, it was just that she was tired, for she couldn’t remember when she had last had a night’s rest. The men, she said, had all taken their turn, but after all, they were men and no good at nursing. But now it was over, a day, two at the most, and she would be on her feet again.
Lizzie seemed to have forgotten that she wanted no contact with Emma, but when your master says to you, ‘If you’re going to be bad, Lizzie, you’d better get to your own bed,’ what could she do?
When the diarrhoea started to get real bad, Emma cried aloud as she emptied the buckets, ‘Oh, oh! God. Oh no! Don’t do this. Don’t do this.’
The doctor came on the third day and he heartened her by saying that her granny would likely pull through; there had been no deaths in the village for over a week now, and those who were sick were recovering. The scourge had worn itself out.
The parson came and he no longer stood a distance from her but he walked into the cottage and sat down by Lizzie’s bed; and he talked to her, but strangely not about God or heaven or anything like that, which somewhat surprised Emma. He told her she’d soon be on her feet and she must get well for she was needed in the farmhouse now. ‘You can’t expect four big men to look after themselves,’ he said. But her granny hadn’t spoken at all, she had just lain and looked at him.
When he was about to take his leave he beckoned Emma outside, and there he said gently, ‘She’ll survive. With God’s help, she’ll survive, as I have done, Emma.’ Then his head slightly bent, he said, ‘I’m sorry I disturbed your mind that night past, but things were very bad and people were going like flies, and of course being merely a human being in contact with them I was fully expecting my call to come any time. I…I hope I didn’t worry you.’
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p; ‘No, no, Parson,’ she answered; ‘you didn’t worry me.’
‘Good. I…I shall call again tomorrow. Goodbye, Emma.’
As she returned into the room she knew that the parson wanted her to forget what he had said on that past night.
She went to the bed and, kneeling down by its side, she wiped her granny’s brow with a piece of wet rag; and as she did so Lizzie made a sound like a laugh. But no muscle of her face had moved, and, her voice slow as if each word was an effort, she said, ‘Men wanting me in the farmhouse. After all these years. I…I could come into me own, what…should have been mine in the beginning; but now I’ll never do it. Tain’t fair. Life ain’t fair. No’—her voice sank deep in her throat—‘life ain’t fair.’
She closed her eyes for a moment and Emma stopped wiping her face and went to rise from her knees. But Lizzie spoke again, saying, ‘Marry him lass, Barney, and you’ll come into what should have been mine. It’ll be justice…justice. I might rest easy knowing that you were reaping the benefit of me havin’ been cheated; for she cheated me. Oh aye, barefaced she was, barefaced.’ Her voice trailed away, and Emma turned towards the fire and leant her head against the wooden mantelshelf and the tears rolling down her cheeks made tiny pinging sounds as they dropped from her chin onto the hot ashes on the hearth.
The parson wanted her to forget what he had said…and implied. And he had implied. She wasn’t a fool, she knew what he had implied as plain as if he had put it into words. Somehow she had always known how he felt about her; she had always known how she had felt about him. And her granny wanted her to marry Barney…Her granny thought she was going to die. Oh, no! No! No! She mustn’t! She mustn’t die.
Dropping onto her knees, she began to beseech God for her granny’s life.
Lizzie didn’t take as long to go as Dilly Yorkless; three days later she was dead.
Emma couldn’t take it in. She had tended her up till midnight. The diarrhoea had eased off and she was lying quiet. Her face had looked pink in the candlelight and Emma had said, ‘You look better, Granny, you’ve got over the turn.’
Lizzie hadn’t answered but had taken her hand between her own two and given it a weak grasp, and so it was with a feeling of relief that Emma had sat in the rocking chair that was pulled up to the side of the bed and in utter weariness she had fallen into a deep sleep.
It was the cock crowing that woke her up. The room was dark and was dead cold; the candle had guttered itself out, as had the fire. Pulling herself awake, she scurried about getting a candle. When it was lit, she placed it on the box to the side of the bed. Her granny looked peacefully asleep. Next she blew up the fire and put the kettle on and, having filled a little pan with some milk, she placed it to the side of the hob.
Going to the bed now, she gently straightened the bedclothes under her granny’s chin. It was then, for the first time, she noticed the stillness about her.
Her hands trembling, she touched the pale cheek; then she was kneeling by the bed, both hands now on Lizzie’s face, crying, ‘Granny! Granny! wake up. Granny! Granny!’ But Lizzie was past waking.
Emma lifted up the candle the better to see. It looked as if her granny was smiling one of her rare smiles.
‘Oh! no. No! No! Granny. No! Granny.’ She was wagging her head from side to side, talking aloud now, ‘You were better last night. Oh no, no, don’t be gone. Oh Granny. Granny.’
The sound of the kettle spluttering and the milk boiling over brought her to her feet and she rushed to the fireplace and retrieved them both from the flames and put them on the hearth, then she turned and stood looking towards the bed, her hands joined in front of her face, her teeth biting down on her two thumbnails.
The cock was still crowing. She now turned to the door and, taking a cloak from the back of it, she pulled it around her and went out. The wind was driving a thin rain before it and as she entered the farmyard she saw the kitchen door open and Jake Yorkless emerge.
‘Mister.’
He stopped when he heard her voice. Then lifting the lantern he had in his hand, he said, ‘What’s up? Stay where you are.’
She came to a standstill some yards before him, saying, ‘Me granny, she’s…she’s gone.’
He did not speak for a moment but she saw him turn his head to the side and bite hard down on his lower lip. Then he uttered one word: ‘God!’
Now he was looking at her again, saying, ‘Get back to the cottage. I’ll tell them down at the village; they can come up and get her.’
As he was turning to go back into the house she said, ‘I…I want her buried decent.’
He swung round and lifting the lantern again, he asked, ‘Where’s the money coming from?’
‘I’ve…I’ve got the money.’
‘You’ve got the—?’ He stopped and took a small step towards her. ‘Where did you get the money, enough to bury her?’
‘It was given to me. It doesn’t matter. And…and me granny should have some an’all. I brought it with me when I came here. I gave it to her.’
‘Begod, you did!’ There was high surprise in his voice. And she heard herself answer, ‘Yes, begod! I did.’
It must have been the manner of her answering him that brought his head poking forward and moving from side to side as if he wasn’t sure it was she who had spoken. And he was standing like that as she turned away and went back to the cottage …
The parson came at ten o’clock.
She had washed her granny, laid her out in a clean calico nightgown that Lizzie had sewn many years back and had kept for this very purpose. She had combed her hair. And now her head rested on a piece of clean sheeting that she had laid over the striped tick of the feather pillow.
Yesterday she had washed and managed to dry one of the three twill sheets they possessed, and now it covered her. Following this, she had opened the two windows, and the door too, and let the cold damp air sweep through the room, for the smell in it was beginning to make her feel sick. Lastly, she had brought a bucket of water from the stream and washed her own face, arms, and feet in it. Then she had cleaned up the room as best she could, so when the parson arrived everything was as tidy and as clean as she could make it.
As Henry Grainger looked at this girl, this budding woman, his heart was so filled with sadness that the usual words of comfort he kept for the bereaved would not come to his lips. He only knew that if anything should happen to her, if she should follow the woman on the bed, then his faith in God would be snapped entirely. He had for some time been in great agony of mind over the infallible ways of the Lord. He could understand Him taking the old but not the young, not those to whom he had given life and whom he had allowed to glimpse the waters of spring but had then forbidden them to taste them. But this girl before him, who had been destined to work so lowly and who was now left without a guardian and at the mercy of men, and those men near at hand, one at least of whom was known to be a licentious creature even though he was promised to a young woman in the village, what was to become of her? What were God’s plans for her? This was a big question mark in his mind.
His voice sounded ordinary as he asked, ‘How are you, Emma?’
‘I’m well, Parson, but heart sore. She…She was all I had, and…and we got on together.’ Her voice broke as she ended, ‘I…I think, under her roughness she was fond of me.’
‘She was more than fond of you, Emma, she loved you. I know that.’
After staring at her lowered head for a moment, he walked up the room and, kneeling down by the low bed, he began to pray softly. Using ordinary words, he asked God to accept this hardworking woman into his care and to give her a place in heaven where she would find rest for all eternity…That last was a phrase that sometimes troubled him. Eternity was long, and could a soul rest forever in it? That is if it was to carry any of its earthly character over the border of death.
When he rose to his feet, Emma was still standing where he had left her and she said to him, ‘I want her to be buried decently, Pars
on, not in a common grave. I can pay for it, I have money.’
He said nothing, but at the look of enquiry in his eyes she reminded him that Mr Bowman paid her for the pictures, and she added, ‘I think me granny might have something in her kist, I haven’t looked yet. But anyway, there’ll be enough for a decent coffin and a grave.’
‘They’ll…they’ll want to take her tomorrow, Emma.’
‘Yes, I know; but Mr Farrow would surely have a decent coffin on hand.’
‘Yes, yes, perhaps so, Emma. Anyway, I’ll talk to him. But don’t worry, she’ll be put away decently. I’ll see to that.’
‘Thank you, Parson.
‘Parson.’
‘Yes, Emma?’
‘Will you tell Mr Bowman?’
There was a pause before he said, ‘I’ll tell Mr Bowman, I’ll go right there now. He’ll…He’ll be very sorry.’
They nodded at each other and he went out, and slowly she sat down on the rocking chair and looked towards the bed. Mr Bowman would be sorry. Had he loved her granny? She didn’t know; that he had used her at one time she did know, but she also knew that usage and love weren’t the same thing.
Three
It was a week since Lizzie was buried, and no-one had invited Emma into the farmhouse. There was no woman at all in the house, the men were looking after themselves. And now this morning, shamefacedly Barney stood in front of Emma admitting that they tried to get someone from the village to see to things indoors, but that no-one would come near the place.
Two women had died here within a short time of each other, and they were women who had been hale and hearty. So, no mothers were offering to come up and give a hand, much less allow their daughters to take up work on this particular farm.
With her eyes cast down Emma listened to him saying, ‘In a way, Emma, it could be a good thing, a godsend because they’ll have to have you in, in the end. The place is like a pigsty and beginning to smell like that an’ all, and we haven’t had a decent meal since me mother went. None of us were made to cook, Pete least of all.’ He smiled weakly at her, then he ended, ‘You’ve only got to bide your time.’
The Whip (The Spaniard's Gift) Page 19
